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Color pencil sketch drawing8/9/2023 ![]() Testing methods and standards vary, and it can be very hard to get additional or in-depth information from customer service. For colored pencils you usually don’t get pigment information, but the manufacturers at least tell you if the color is more or less lightfast. A lot of the grass in the foreground is drawn with colored pencil Lightfastness in colored pencilsĪs with all art supplies, I prefer to use materials that are reasonably lightfast if possible – although I work a lot in sketchbooks, I want to make sure I (or a customer who buys an original from me) can still see what I’ve drawn a couple of years from now. Muted colors are also a great choice for making colored sketches, on white paper or on toned paper (light pencils let you add highlights). Warm greys are also a good choice, I like to use grey colored pencils for drawing instead of regular pencils. For nature sketching, you can never have too many greens and browns. I usually don’t just get the standard rainbow colors that you get when buying a box (although these are useful too), but I often select single pencils with slightly more muted colors like light and dark browns, blues or greens. For me, the combination of thinking in value and color (painting) and thinking in line quality (drawing) can be achieved very well with colored pencil and watercolor. I also like to add last touches to gouache or watercolor landscapes sketches with colored pencils – tree branches or grasses are also great to do in this technique. Sometimes I use colored pencils for the very first layer to preserve details (how feathers are organized, patterns, etc.). ![]() Most typically I will use colored pencil as the last layer on top of watercolor, a lot of the details in my wildlife drawings (feathers, fur) can be done this way. If I want it to disappear or merge with my painting, I’ll use water-soluble pencils (and sometimes I don’t think ahead and my drawing disppears when I add water). If I want to use colored pencils for line work that I want to be seen later, I use a pencil that’s not water-soluble. I like to plan for these different qualities when I’m sketching. You can add water to some of them and spread the pigments around (watercolor pencils), and some will stay in place when you add water. ![]() All of them need binders for the pigments – some have more oil-based ingredients and some are wax-based. There are different kinds of colored pencils. I find colored pencils can often bring out certain fine details better and in a more controlled way than fiddling with fine brushes, and sometimes I use them instead of pencils for sketching – you have a wide selection of color and colored pencils give very smooth strokes, and they blend nicely into the rest of the sketch of you add color on top. ![]() Rather, I combine them with watercolor to add texture and detail. I like to have a few colored pencils around for sketching, but I don’t usually use them alone. ![]()
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